Creative YOUCreativity is everywhere. Opportunity is not. We are part of the solution. The secret is in our name. Every year Creative Youth Network gives thousands of young people a taste and thirst for the arts and culture and the joy, life-skills and opportunity they bring. But we want more. Creative YOU is our campaign showcasing how we, you and the engaged, emerging and amazing young creatives we support, come together. We want to reveal how, together, we are ambition, quality, cultural democracy and social mobility in action. Every young person deserves the right to access creativity and development opportunities in the creative and cultural industries. It all starts with education. If all young people have access to creative subjects in school, then talented young people from all backgrounds can pursue their passion, develop crucial skills needed in so many industries and improve their wellbeing. 1. Pledge Add your name and join the many people passionate about bringing creativity back into our schools. With all the pledges we’ll be reaching out to headteachers in Bristol and the South West. We hope this will encourage local academies to give more space to creativity in their curriculum. Bristol, being the creative city we know and love, can pave the way for other regions to do the same, showcasing the true value of creativity. PLEDGE 2. Sign up Join us by signing up to our newsletter where we share best practice of how to support young people. sign up 3. Find out more Join us by reading and sharing our CreativeYOU report which shows how our work brings opportunities for creative expression and enables young people to explore their talent, regardless of background or circumstance. Download our Creative YOU report Sarah Cook Sarah developed some of her first artistic projects on our Creative Futures programme. She has now exhibited at the arebyte Gallery in her first solo show, is collaborating with academics at UWE, working as a freelance creative for the BBC and helping other young under-represented artists in the tech industry. I’m Sarah Cook, and I’m 26. I first engaged with Creative Youth Network on their Creative Futures programme. I applied after graduating the year before and having moved to Bristol from Manchester. I hadn’t worked in the arts before and had just been fired, so was NEET. I wanted to get into a creative career and develop knowledge of platforms. I was struggling having left Uni to find a balance between work and creating and wanted to find that. The Creative Futures programme helped my figure out how to work professionally, which wasn’t covered at Uni. I learnt how to make a living out of my art and gave me a focus on my creative process, having deadlines and something to work towards. Having studio space as well as I didn’t have any space beforehand. It also gave me a network in Bristol including professionals. Since then, the piece I made with the commission from Creative Futures was shortlisted the Ashurst Emerging Artist Award. This meant that new audiences and professionals got to see my work, I developed networks and met the founder of the immersive times. I was chosen for the Arebyte Gallery Residency, which led to my first solo show in London. I’ve since become a freelancer for the BBC, where I have led workshops in wearable technologies, including workshops as part of the TATE late programme. Currently, I’m working with Senor Lecture’s at UWE, supporting them with their experiments about quarantine. I’m also working with Immersive kinds and developing residency programmes for other young underrepresented artists in the tech industry, using lessons learnt and inspirated Creative Youth Network. Further to that. I’m working in the Tech club at UWE. To date, the highlight of my career is my work ‘Raised by Google’, the Arebyte Gallery show, because it was the first time where I had enough funds to create large scale work, learning a massive amount and having my first solo show. A highlight was seeing it all come together and seeing the tech work! Creative Youth Network was the catalyst that started everything, giving me a professional career in creative industries. I wouldn’t have had the confidence to exhibit my work without their support and encouragement. It was the right time to do it and led onto everything I’m doing now. Website: www.sarahselby.co.uk Email: [email protected] Twitter: @SarahSelbyArt If you'd like to support young artists such as Sarah, donate now: Please select a donation amount (required) £15 Could provides a young carer an evening of fun activities, taking a break from their caring responsibilities £30 Could provide hot meals for 50 young asylum seekers and refugees to eat together during our weekly sessions £50 Provides a 1:2:1 session for a young person struggling with their mental health with one of our trusted youth workers Other Set up a regular payment Donate Manage Cookie Preferences How can we help?